Digital transformation in hospitality has been booming. Every hotel and restaurant runs a mix of technology: a Property Management System for day-to-day functions, the industry-standard software everyone uses, marketing and booking aggregators (Booking.com, Trivago, JustEat, Deliveroo), affiliate and loyalty platforms, voucher systems, plus social media and email marketing.
That's easily 5–7 separate systems, each with its own CRM - and each adding to your average cost per acquisition. All these platforms have one thing in common: commission-based pricing of 10–20% per order. Signing up is easy. But what if acquisition could be cheaper - especially for returning customers, who order 1.7–3.4 times per month?
Your local restaurant - the monthly commission
Take a simple scenario: a restaurant paying the lowest 10% aggregator commission, versus taking orders through its own website with an order and booking engine. Done right, digital transformation here increases revenue and website traffic, reduces operational costs, and improves service quality and customer experience.
Let's compare
Running ordering on your own website involves a few services: website maintenance from about £140 per month, an online payment gateway at 1.4% + £0.20 per order, email and SMS notifications at roughly £0.02 per message, and an online/offline marketing budget - for this comparison, 5% (a slice of what the aggregator was charging).
Basing the calculation on 250 orders averaging £25 each: even with maintenance and marketing included - costs most hospitality businesses already carry - you save £119 a month, with total acquisition cost at 8.1% of revenue. Excluding those existing budget lines, the saving is £571.50 a month and acquisition cost drops to 0.9% of revenue.
In conclusion
Check how much commission you paid your aggregator last month - at least 20% of it can usually be saved. Keep the aggregators for discovery if you like, but move your regulars to your own channel.
Send us one month of aggregator statements and we'll model your exact saving - then build the ordering engine as a proof of concept.